Aamir in my next film, Mani Ratnam

09

January

By Lekha Madhavan02:44 pm

After the release of the much anticipated GURU, filmmaker Mani Ratnam plans to start work on his Aamir Khan starrer, LAJJO. The acclaimed filmmaker who is known to be reticent about his films revealed this on the eve of the music release of the Telugu version of GURU, titled, GURUKANTH. “I intend to start work on LAJJO a few months from now and it will very much be my next film,” Ratnam revealed. He dismissed rumors about a film with south superstar, Rajnikanth, which have been doing the rounds in the past few days, leading to speculation that LAJJO was likely to be postponed further. “That is mere speculation, which keeps happening in the media. We all need to check out the facts,” he said.

He also clearly denied that GURU was based on the life of the late business tycoon, Dhirubhai Ambani, adding that he was unaware of the Ambanis having been shown the film. “It is a rumor and another piece of speculation. GURU could be based on anyone’s life. It could document the life of any big man, who has come up the hard way. It portrays the success story of a man spread over a span of 30 years and the trials and tribulations of his life,” he revealed. He was all praise for Abhishek Bachchan’s performance in the film. “He has grown tremendously as an actor from the YUVA days. He’s lived up to the role spanning three decades very effectively. It is really Abhishek who’s carrying the film on his shoulders with his hi-voltage performance. It is probably his best performance till date,” he said.

He also had a good word to say about Aishwarya Rai’s performance in the film. “She has also matured as an actor since I last worked with her in IRUVAR, except that this time it was she who helped me with the language unlike the last time when she had a difficulty with the language,” he smiled, adding that Aishwarya’s look of a village girl in the film had to do a lot with the period of the film revolving around the era of the 50s and the 60s.

He described GURU as a very realistic film which portrayed the success story of a man spanning three generations, capturing the period in its true authenticity. “It is definitely not glossy story-telling,” he admitted, making it a point to add that the film still confirmed to the commercial parameters that was expected of it.